China, 2007 The KFC outside Beijing West Train Station. People sleeping arms akimbo on tables in the crush. Migrant boys' hipster haircuts sprawled like slaughtered hedgehogs atop the white plastic. The round faces of puffy-jacketed rural girls, soft and inscrutable in dreams. Normally, the capacity of Beijingers to sleep amidst swirling masses of humanity would be ... [Continue Reading]
Sweat Ride through the Smog Swamp
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I met him when I was trying to get to work. I was walking down the street in the Old Quarter, dodging traffic in my too-baggy work pants, the Hanoian humidity pressing down on me like a clammy hand, like it wanted to suffocate me, like it might actually want to kill me. I was thinking about a coconut, how I’d get a coconut later when I got off work, which I ... [Continue Reading]
Girls, Girls, Girl
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The girls looked bored. They slouched in plastic chairs, picked at their nails, crossed and uncrossed their toothpick legs. Neon shadows slashed their skin, deepened the dark places, made their bones look sharper than they really were. Men filtered through the open-air patio, Western guys in flip-flops and shorts. They wore the efficient expressions of informed ... [Continue Reading]
On the Rails in Phnom Penh
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We called him Eat Pray Paul. Because there were two Pauls and they were more or less indistinguishable — both red-faced old dudes who’d been kicking out Cambodia for years, smoking ice, shagging prostitutes and losing teeth until there wasn’t a whole lot left. Both Pauls would wash up at George’s house from time to time, when shit got bad enough and they’d ... [Continue Reading]
The Air-Conditioned Traveler
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It was December 2001. I was visiting Malaysia – more specifically, on this particular afternoon I was visiting the covered Central Market building in Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown – for the first time. My dad and my stepmom were three months into a three-year expat residency in KL, and I was a fresh-faced, jet-lagged rookie traveler, ready to take on Asia. My dad had ... [Continue Reading]